West Lake

West Lake is Portage's neighborhood water — 335 acres, shallow (reported depths around twelve feet), with more than 200 homes on shore and one of the area's more active lake communities. The West Lake Improvement Association runs water-quality work, summer events, and an annual youth fishing contest each May that tells you what kind of lake this is. The fishing runs to largemouth bass, bluegill, and northern pike in weedy water that warms early — classic neighborhood-lake fishing, and there's no public boat ramp, so the water belongs to residents.

But the public's piece of West Lake is genuinely extraordinary: the West Lake Nature Preserve (420 S Shore Dr), 110 acres of wetland with 1,400 feet of lake frontage, founded in 1979 on land donated by Percy Matteson. The headline is the bog walk — a network of plastic decking that floats directly on a mat of living sphagnum moss, over dead peat that runs as much as forty feet deep beneath your feet. The trail carries you from dry upland forest through lowland woods, marsh, and swamp onto the open bog mat, an Ice Age relict ecosystem where you can spot carnivorous pitcher plants, bladderwort, pink lady's slipper orchids, leatherleaf, cotton grass, bog cranberry, and tamarack. A dock promenade at the lake end delivers the panoramic view. About 1.4 miles of easy looping trail, free parking, a nature-themed playground and picnic area at the entrance, and self-guided tour signage; the city's 'Wander the Wetlands' brochure covers the botany.

Local knowledge from the regulars: the floating decking weeps — water squirts up through the holes as you walk, so expect damp shoes and skip the white sneakers; on hot days the gray decking gets scalding underfoot (dog owners carry their dogs across the exposed stretches); wild blackberries line parts of the trail in early July; and sections close periodically after high water, so check conditions after wet spells. The preserve also anchors Portage's South-Central Greenway — five parks, 483 acres, six miles of connected trail (a quarter of it floating), linking via the Jud Bushey Memorial Trail to Bishop's Bog, registered by the Michigan Nature Conservancy as the largest remaining relict bog in southern Michigan. You can walk park-to-park for 4.6 miles and cross exactly one road.